Roots of Peace

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of this documentary. All texts of most of the world’s religions say essentially the same thing: Live a life of virtue, be kind to one another, don’t be selfish.

But, when we conclude that only our way of looking at the world is correct, that there’s only once path to enlightenment, that’s when all the trouble starts.

Rick’s rant

Good recap in the Christian Science Monitor about the rant from Rick Santelli, a reporter for CNBC, about the stimulus package (video above):

“How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage because they can’t pay their bills?” he yelled on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade last Thursday.

Greeted with a chorus of boos, an exasperated Santelli — arms waving like an over-caffeinated octopus — said, “President Obama, are you listening?”

It’s created quite a stir.

AJC announces more cuts

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has announced the cuts I alluded to earlier in the week. In a statement from the publisher, Doug Franklin, they outlined the current predicament:

For years, the AJC was sustained by classified and retail advertising. This revenue allowed us to deliver the newspaper to you 365 days a year at a very reasonable price. But as people turned to the Internet, classified listings declined. Our retail advertisers have been forced by current significant economic challenges to reduce their ad spending.

… No business can lose money for long, and we are working day and night to turn this around. We are making difficult decisions: we have cut staff, frozen pay, reduced our circulation area and taken a sharp pencil to all our business costs.

He announced that the paper will shutter the standalone business section and merge three Sunday features sections. He also alluded to findings from focus groups that has led to a change in coverage:

We have dramatically stepped up our investigative efforts. We’ve added two business columnists and made great strides to simplify and better organize the newspaper. We have redoubled our efforts to present important local news while still providing the national and international coverage you want.

… We also have worked hard to create news pages that are free of bias and opinion pages that are balanced.

Welcome news. Putting a focus on investigative news plays to the newspaper’s strength. Any news outlet can cover a fire or a shooting, but few have the ability to conduct in-depth investigations that keep a check on the powerful. (Today’s probe of our three-decade long agriculture commissioner comes to mind.)

But, Franklin’s vow to ferret out bias is also refreshing. For years, the biggest complaint against the AJC (and most other city’s major newspaper) has been the left-leaning tilt of news coverage. Many people who are defecting away from traditional media are doing so because they perceive a bias in the coverage. In pre-Internet days, those critics had no other options. Today they have plenty. The AJC’s focus on rooting out bias shows a concern for reader complaints that were brushed aside when the advertising coffers were overflowing.

I have high hopes for the new newspaper paradigm that’s forming. I think the newspaper of the future will improve on its strengths and eliminate the information readers can easily get elsewhere. That’s good news.

Mayurasana

From my yoga journal daily email:

Like most other arm balances, Mayurasana (Peacock Pose) appears to require exceptional strength. What is actually needed, though, is patient, progressive work to develop a more intimate relationship with gravity.

Feel free to laugh at those last five words.

Steampunk

Everything I needed to know, I learned on Wikipedia:

Steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of ‘the path not taken’ of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or with a presumption of functionality.

Creating An Open-Source Business Model For Newspapers

Some good ideas for saving newspapers: Creating An Open-Source Business Model For Newspapers

This is why you’re fat.

Enjoy this collection of high-calorie creations at this is why you’re fat. The cheeseburger pizza looks particularly heart-attack inducing.

Chinese journalism forum at Georgia State

Here’s a picture from the forum I attended in Atlanta today with some Chinese journalism professionals. Quite interesting.

The woman on the left is a professor and the man to her right is an editor for a privately owned Chinese magazine. They were both clearly free-speech advocates who detested the Chinese system in which everyone must get a “license” to be a journalist. Apparently, there’s quite a bit of rampant abuse of the licenses, with many journalists trading coverage for bribes.

But the guy sitting second from the right was from the “Government Information Office” or something. He kept adding to the other speakers’ statements and setting the record straight on how China’s authoritarian approach is really best for everyone. He said that because of the Chinese Civil War and the Cultural Revolution many Chinese were suspicious of social movements.

One interesting point — there’s actually a considerable amount of press freedom. The state-owned papers are suffering from sharply lower circulations with privately owned papers and magazines picking up the slack. Many smaller outlets actually manage to report without interference, but they must be careful of how critical they are of the state. Too much criticism can lead to “sanctions” — although they never explained that definition exactly.

All in all, a great cultural exchange. I even shook everyone’s hand — including the government minder — and thanked them with my best “Xie xie.” A little cosmopolitan leftover from that trip to China.

On the benefits of holding out

California just passed a budget to fill a $42 billion shortfall. They had to woo one Republican to get enough votes to pass the bill. He was able to extract a few demands:

“Finally, in the witching hours of Thursday morning, lawmakers caved to some of the demands of State Senator Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria, who wanted constitutional amendments establishing an open primary system and banning legislative pay increases during deficit years, and the elimination of 12 cent gas tax hike from the plan.

Mr. Maldonado also won an amendment that would make California political primaries open, a bill that many Democrats resisted to the bitter end.

All three of his demands seem quite reasonable. Amazing that they weren’t already in the budget. Or, given our political system, perhaps not so amazing.

Why, again, is Norman Mailer revered?

That’s Mailer on the right with Gore Vidal, Janet Flanner and Dick Cavett. Mailer acts like a complete ass while Vidal and Flanner offer some nice retorts.

But the best line is from Cavett: “Perhaps you’d like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect?”